


Retrouvailles

by terminallybored



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Accidental Cuddling, Angst and Humor, Canon Compliant, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Graphic description of ruined pizza, Happy Ending, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 22:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12969954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminallybored/pseuds/terminallybored
Summary: Derek and Stiles don’t have the best track record of tracking down their wayward pack members. Stiles just hopes that maybe practice makes perfect because the tip they got on Isaac was dicey at best, but they’re still getting on the plane to Paris.





	Retrouvailles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kittylovessterek (kitty_fic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_fic/gifts).



> Written for kitty_fic as part of Eternal Sterek Secret Santa 2017 based on the prompts Romance, Happy Endings, Pretend Relationships, and Forced Proximity
> 
> Retrouvailles [French]- The happiness of meeting again after a long time

Stiles is going to owe rent to the photo department in Macy’s in about twenty minutes. Sure, the photo editing kiosks are dinosaurs these days with most people sending their photos right to Facebook, so he’s not exactly holding up a line here, but still. The girl behind the counter just looks like she’s tired of listening to Stiles swear at the machine. He taps fruitlessly at the red eye reduction button again, but it just does something to kind of muddle the colors. It does exactly nothing to fix the lens flares being thrown off by eight goddamn eyes in the photo.

Stiles undoes the fix because the old colors were better and shifts his weight back on his heels, considering the photo for about the fifth time so far. It’s the only photo he’s ever seen of all of Derek’s Betas together. The tricky details like where it came from and whose it was are a mystery because Derek sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it when Stiles found it shoved into a book.

There’s the huge glass wall of an airport window behind them. Erica’s lipstick is immaculate, and she’s leaned so far into Boyd that her blond hair obscures the JROTC patch on his jacket. Jackson manages to look kind of pissed even when the top of his face is obscured by the glint from his eyes. He’s wearing a scarf. Isaac, who’s arm reaches toward the camera and disappears behind it, is not. It’s much better detail than he had an hour ago, when the photo just looked like the background of Abrams’ Star Trek movie. It’s probably about as good as it’s going to get.

It’s definitely a shitty gift idea.

‘Hey Derek, Merry Christmas. Here’s a photo of two dead people and two people who left the country. I think they took this picture right before one of them left forever. I even framed it so you can place your completely collapsed pack on your mantle and look at it forever.’

Okay, so he wouldn’t actually write that in the card. He’s going to hate this gift idea and there’s about an 80% chance he’ll hide it in the back of his closet and get Derek one of those gift sets with the sausages and the tiny cleaver. Stiles _knows_ he’ll hate it. He kind of already does. He just needs to finish it and see if, sometime before Christmas, he starts to like the idea again.

“Bilinski!”

Stiles flails his arms and whips around, instinctively bracing himself for the whistle that still haunts his dreams. “Coach, I-” He blinks at the green sweater and the blue jeans and the paper cup from the food court’s Cinnabon. “..you look normal.”

“I hate to ruin the magic for you, Bilinski, but I do eventually leave the school and wander among the mortals,” Coach Finstock says, with a touch more sarcasm than Stiles thinks is warranted. “You have that look on your face. You okay?”

“What look?”

“The one you used to get before you started double-fisting pencils during a test, kid.” Coach looks over his shoulder and frowns at the photo. “I think you might have overdone it with the Photoshop effects.”

“Uh… yes,” Stiles agrees, because that’s a way better excuse than he probably would have come up with on his own. “I’m probably just gonna scrap it and-”

“Hey, this was back when our lacrosse team still had a prayer!” Coach laughs and taps the screen. “Before Jackson crossed the pond and what’s-his-name ditched us to French it up.”

“Hey, Scott and I were still on the team after…” Stiles trails off and looks over his shoulder at the photo, then at Coach. “You knew Isaac went to France?”

Coach shrugs. “Not until I saw him there.”

Stiles’ brain struggles to process all of this information at once because there’s a lot packed into those six words. “Wait, you went to France? Why would you… where? Where did you see Isaac?”

“Jesus, kid, this was months ago.” Coach Finstock squints at the screen a second, then shakes his head. “I don’t remember. It was some gimmicky romantic trip where they pack a bunch of bunk field trips into every day, so my attention was… you know. Diverted.”

“Aren’t you single?” Because Stiles’ brain is not capable of leaving anything alone.

“I was engaged at the time. Whirlwind internet romance, didn’t actually make it to the altar.”

Stiles pauses to calculate how long he’s been out of school to have missed out on this much. “So… all of this happened in like… a year?”

“It was a busy year. Thank you for continuing to talk about it.”

“Right. Sorry. So… who was giving this tour?”

* * *

 

**Google Translate**  
**English** : I am looking for a man. He has curly hair and blue eyes. He wears a scarf.  
**French** : Je cherche un homme. Il a les cheveux bouclés et les yeux bleus. Il porte une écharpe.

 

Derek only threatens to kill Stiles twice during the flight. It’s 12 hours crammed together, so the ratio is actually pretty impressive. Either Derek is getting more patience or Stiles is getting less annoying. Maybe it pays off to fly across the world spur of the moment and have to get everything done on the plane ride.

Stiles flips through his stack of notecards, muttering to himself as the passengers in the rows ahead of them begin to file off the plane.

“Je cherche un homme.” Stiles rolls the unfamiliar syllables on his tongue. “Je cherche un homme. Il a.. Jesus, I sound like some loser tourist looking for someone I met on the internet. Who goes to another country to meet someone from the internet? God, they’ll think I’m some desperate moron who got scammed,” he groans.

“I’ve been trying to tell you that. Or the gist of that, anyway.” Derek grabs their bags from the overhead bin while Stiles hefts his laptop bag over his shoulder and follows him down the narrow plane aisle.

“I’m open to better ideas, Mr. Linguist.” Stiles shoves his notecards into the front pocket of his bag. He spent all that time on them, he might as well keep them on hand.

“First off, stop sounding like you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing,” Derek says, like subconscious voice inflection is easy to control.

“Great, sounds easy.”

“Second, stop being a smartass.”

“Sounds hard.”

Derek pulls out his wallet and pulls out a school photo of Isaac. It must have been from the year before Isaac became all werewolfy and incapable of having a decent photo taken. “Third. Hold up the photo. ‘I am looking for my friend.’ Je cherche mon ami.”

Stiles gapes for a moment, then snatches the photo. “You know, this would all be a lot easier if you weren’t so stingy about photos and shit. Do you just hide everything you own that makes you seem like you have a heart?”

“Yes.” Derek finally looks at him as they get out of the tunnel and into the airport. “Now. Je cherche mon ami.”

Stiles looks at the photo with Isaac’s crooked half smile and vaguely wonders what other photos Derek has hidden away. “Je cherche mon ami.”

* * *

  
_**Tour pour Deux**_

_**Maison du Coeur** \- Rest your head at this sweet little B&B that’s just far enough outside the action that the lights of Paris won’t keep you awake at night! The rooms are a perfect fit and the back garden is the perfect place to snuggle up on a bench to watch the sunset! Madame Marnie Beaulieu promises both discretion and homemade palmier pastries with fresh whipped cream._

_~~~~~_

 

“I can’t believe how cold this place gets.” Stiles rubs his arms vigorously through his hoodie, already missing the warmth of their shuttle van from the airport. They scenery around them has turned distinctly suburban since leaving their drop-off point, with trees along the streets and paths branching off the main road

“It’s December.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Thank you, Calendar Man. I’m aware.”

Derek gives him a disappointed look even as he pulls off his leather jacket and drapes it over Stiles’ shoulders. “That’s not even clever.”

“It’s a D-list Batman villain so yes, it is!” Stiles pulls the jacket in closer around him. “All the pictures of France are all sunny and warm-looking.”

Stiles is not expecting to follow the turn marked on his map and find… a house. He looks at the low stone cottage with ivy growing over the walls that were getting mid-morning sun and cheerful red shutters. He looks back at the notecard with the address on it. Then back at the building. “This is somebody’s house.”

Derek gives him a Look. “It’s a bed and breakfast.”

“It’s… a house.”

“A lot of B&Bs are run out of people’s homes.” Derek takes the notecard and cranes back to see the street sign. “This is the place.”

“That is… super weird. Like, we’re just staying at someone’s house?” Stiles isn’t sure how he feels about that. “Seems invasive.”

“You need to get out of Beacon Hills more.” Derek heads up the little stone pathway that leads to the front door (red, like the shutters). He pauses to read a plaque beside the door, which someone has carefully kept free of the surrounding ivy.

“Beacon Hills has a motel, which is proper. God, these poor people. They had to put up with Coach for days,” Stiles sighs, following Derek up the path. “I can’t believe they didn’t just close up shop from that kind of trauma.”

“Stiles.” Derek jabs a finger at the plaque. “Did you bother to check anything about this place before you booked the rooms?”

“I… saw the name and booking information on the 'Tour pour Deux' website,” Stiles says carefully, though he’s pretty sure that’s not what Derek wants to hear. “What’s wrong with it? Aside from that it’s someone’s house.”

Derek taps the plaque again and Stiles looks at it. It’s in French, which is to be expected when one is in France.

_Maison du Coeur_  
_“La vie est une fleur dont l’amour est le miel.” -Victor Hugo_  
_(por les couples)_

“Yeah, I… don’t know what that says,” Stiles says after looking at it blankly for a few seconds. “Except Victor Hugo, I got that part. Hunchback and all that, but I’m guessing that’s not what’s important?”

“It’s for couples, Stiles. This place is for couples.”

“Oh.” Stiles’ brain kind of blanks at that because… that’s a thing? “That’s a thing? Places you can’t go without a boyfriend?”

Derek sighs and rubs his sinuses. “Yes, it’s a thing.”

Stiles pulls out his map and sighs. “Okay, well every route I’ve mapped out was using this as our HQ.” He brandishes the map at Derek, showing him the fat, black lines of marker all branching out from one point, marked with a crudely-drawn house on the map. He spent hours on it during the plane ride, and he’s loathe to trash that kind of work without a fight. “Also, I’m freezing, and we don’t have a car to drive around looking for a hotel. Can’t we just say we’re boyfriends?”

“You’re actually serious.” It’s more of a resigned statement than a question.

“Come on, Derek. They’re not gonna make us make out before they give us a room.” Well… then again, it _is_ France, and this _is_ someone’s house, so it’s already pretty weird, and-

“They’re not,” Derek confirms, like he can hear Stiles’ brain wrestling with way too many unknown factors.

“Great!” Stiles folds his map back up. “Then we’re boyfriends while we’re in Paris. Should we, like… hug or something? When we say we’re boyfriends?” Derek just gives him that dead stare. “Side hug? Bro back slaps? Uh… say we’re in a fight so it’s not weird that we never touch? Oh! We can say that you’re shy and have difficulty accepting public affection?”

“Side hugs,” Derek says flatly. “Now please stop talking.”

* * *

  
_**Tour pour Deux**_

_**Leave a Lock on the Pont des Arts Bridge** \- What could be more romantic than following in the footsteps of all the lovers that came before you? Get yourself a lock and make it your own with you and your sweetheart’s names, a special date, or even a short quote. Then lock it to the bridge and your love belongs to the ages!_  
_~~~~~_

  
“What are we going to lock?” Derek asks, his fifth variation of ‘what are we doing?’ so far, holding the plastic shopping bag to catch the shrapnel as Stiles fights the plastic clamshell packaging off the silver padlock.

“No’hing,” Stiles says around the corner clamped in his teeth as he pulls the other end.

“We have a padlock. Why do we have a padlock if we’re not going to lock something?” Derek holds his hand out and Stiles sighs. He surrenders the package, rubbing the aching hinge of his jaw. There’s a sound of plastic tearing and Derek hands him the package back, the side sliced away neatly.

“Sweet, thanks.” Stiles discards the plastic into the shopping bag and digs their new Sharpie out of it.

“Stiles.”

“It’s a love lock, Derek. We’re going to lock it on a bridge because we’re in love.” Derek just looks at him, waiting, and Stiles sighs as he pulls the cap off the marker. “It’s just a tradition people do in Paris. You go to this bridge…”

“Pont des Arts,” Derek says, checking their map.

“Yeah, that one,” Stiles agrees, because French pronunciation has not been his strong suit so far. “And you write your names on a padlock and clip it to the bridge and toss the keys into the river.” Derek is still looking at him, still waiting. Stiles shrugs. “That’s it. They do it because they’re in love, I don’t make this stuff up!”

“This is stupid.”

“People in love do stupid stuff.” Stiles carefully writes on the face of the lock.

_D.H. + S.S._

“There. Now we’ll blend in with everyone else.” Besides, it was only fair. Boyfriends or not (definitely not), they came all this way. They should leave something behind for it.

Or not.

One really cold walk later, Stiles is turning back and forth on the bridge, looking at both sides. The siding with grates, seen in every photo ever, is gone. The bridge has smooth walls with graffiti style art on it, possibly some sort of homage because the painting is of padlocks hanging from a fence and melting into neon-colored swirls. It’s all very pop art, or something like that. Stiles isn’t an art person.

“I swear this is where they hang locks.”

Derek looks around the bridge. “There’s nowhere to hang a lock.”

“This spot is super famous for locks, I’ve seen photos of it!” Stiles groans and rubs his forehead. “Maybe I got the bridge wrong or…”

“Are you here to hang a lock?” a woman on the side of the bridge asks. She has a British accent and a large camera, which she lowers to look back at them.

“Yes.” Stiles puts an arm around Derek automatically. “We’re in love.”

“Aw, cheers.” She turns and brings her camera up to snap a photo of them. “You’re out of luck on the locks, though. They all got removed.”

Stiles blinks flash spots out of his eyes. “They removed all the love locks? On purpose?”

“The weight of all that love was going to bring the bridge down,” she laughs.

“Oh. Well. That sucks,” Stiles says, frowning. “But also follows the basic rules of architecture and weight distribution, I guess.” He looks at the padlock in his hand. “Guess we can use this when we romantically get a storage room together.” He turns to look at Derek, but… the bridge beside him is empty. “Derek?”

“I think he went over there,” the woman says, kindly pointing Stiles several yards down the bridge where Derek is showing people Isaac’s photo.

“Are you just going to automatically hug me every time you say that?” Derek asks when Stiles catches up to him.

“Uh, yes. You said I could and it helps me remember that we’re boyfriends. And it was a side hug.”

Derek sighs, but lets it go. “Do you remember how to say you’re looking-”

“Je cherche mon ami,” Stiles says automatically, pulling out his own copy of the photo. “I’ll start on the other side.”

* * *

 

**_Tour pour Deux_ **

_**Romantic Dinner for 2** \- Don’t blink, or you might miss the way into this charming little hideaway! The cozy little space will get you and your sweetheart cuddled up close while you share some of the best Italian food to be found in Paris. Our recommendation? Risotto and a bottle of wine on the cobblestones is the perfect way to spend a warm Parisian evening._  
_~~~~~_

 

The restaurant is tiny, just four little tables against a wall of wood-framed windows that look out onto what the printed itinerary describes as a ‘charming little hideaway.’ Stiles calls it an alley. A cobblestone alley that’s probably charming when it’s warm out, but right now it’s just gray and kind of damp and the narrow passage turns into an icy wind tunnel when the breeze picks up. Inside is warmer, which probably has something to do with the kitchen being less than ten feet from tables for patrons. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that there’s a total of 3 people working behind the counter. That’s not a lot of eyes.

“Je cherche mon ami.” Stiles tells the woman who seats them at a table, which is nice of her because Stiles figures she could have just stood at the door and pointed with how tiny the place is. She takes the photo and looks at it.

She frowns long enough that Stiles thinks she might… but then she shakes her head.

“Are you sure? Uh…” Stiles fumbles with his phone. Google Translate is probably responsible for the death of at least 75 of the 80% of the battery life that’s gone. “Êtes-vous sûr?”

“Oui.”

Stiles sighs. “Merci.” He stumbles through ordering glasses of water for himself and Derek, who’s leaning over the short counter and into the kitchen to talk to the two cooks. When he finally comes back and sits down, he shakes his head.

“Nothing.”

“Same with the hostess.” Stiles tucks the photo back in his pocket. “We’re staying to eat, though. I’m starving from trekking all over that park with the grotto. And the cemetery. This is a really weird tour.” He opens the menu.

A pained silence.

Derek sighs and holds out his hand for the menu.

“What’s in the risotto?” Stiles asks, handing it over. “Coach said it was so good that he almost forgot that his girlfriend was a hellcat.”

“Your coach probably shouldn’t interact with children.” Derek rolls his eyes before he looks at the menu, scanning down the page. “This place doesn’t serve risotto.”

* * *

 

**Google Translate**  
**English** : There was a distinct lack of ‘under new management’ signs.  
**French** : Il y avait un manque flagrant de signes 'sous la nouvelle gestion.'

 

“Stiles.” In the bathroom, Stiles hears the pause of Derek’s toothbrush as he waits for an answer. “Stiles. Stop.”

“Stop what.” It’s more a sulk than a question because Stiles will _not_ stop, thank you.

Derek steps out of the bathroom so he can see around the bed to where Stiles is huddled beside the radiator and the wall outlet where his phone is plugged in. “You can’t leave them a negative review because they bought out the old restaurant. It’s not their fault you couldn’t read the name.”

“Watch me.” Stiles taps his screen and wishes he had a keyboard because it’s incredibly hard to be vicious on a touch screen.

“You’re eating the leftover meatballs we brought back while you’re trashing them on Yelp.” Derek raises his eyebrows. “Did you ask Marnie if you could eat something with marinara sauce in the bedroom?

“She said yes, as long as I don’t eat it on the bed. And I’m not trashing the food.”

“This is ridiculous. Give me the phone.” Derek steps around the side of the bed and holds his hand out.

Stiles tightens his grip on it and shoots Derek his best glare. “I’ll be t- Jesus!” Stiles sputters a few more nonsense syllables before he waves a hand at Derek. “Shirt? Yes? I’d even settle for just pants at this point?”

Derek looks down at his black boxers (because of course he wears black boxers just like Stiles imagined when he imagines such things which is really hardly ever). “What?”

“You can’t hang around our room in your underwear!”

“Why not?” Derek picks up the take-away box and shuts it, setting the remnants of the meatballs on the windowsill. “You’ve seen me go full shift and then back again.”

“There’s a difference between natural nudity because you were a fucking wolf and wandering around a tiny bedroom in your boxers like a… like a tart!” Stiles splutters, and he wants to take that entire sentence back immediately but it’s already out there and making Derek raise his eyebrows at him. Judgingly.

“I'm a tart?”

“No. Forget I said that,” Stiles says quickly.

“I don't think I've ever actually heard someone call another person a tart in real life.”

Stiles abandons his phone and hurries into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. “Pants!” he calls from the safety of four walls between him and a whole lot of half-naked werewolf.

Stiles changes into sweat pants and a t-shirt. Then he flosses and brushes his teeth. Rinses his mouth. Washes his face. Inspects his teeth and flosses them again.

“Stiles. I've got pants on, quit dawdling,” Derek calls. Stiles tries to hold in his sigh of relief.

“No one said you had to wait for me before you went to bed,” he calls back, willing to pad on the bravado now that it’s safe.

“I can't sleep when your heart sounds like you’re running a marathon in there.”

Oh. Right. Fucking werewolf ears.

“Maybe I am. You don’t know.” Stiles snaps off the light as he opens the bathroom door. Derek is laying on the bed under the covers. The lamp on his side of the bed is already off. The only light in the room is coming from Stiles’ bedside lamp. With the covers up, he can't confirm the presence of pants, but he's willing to trust Derek on his word. If Stiles had been considering any sort of debutante behavior like sleeping on top of the covers, the bite in the air that's already clawed through his t-shirt by the time he makes it to the bed has ruined it.

Derek let's him try four or five different positions before he starts growling. “Quit fidgeting.”

“It's weird sharing a bed.”

“Pick a position and stick with it before I kill you.”

“You know you’re not really scary anymore, right?” Stiles gets a growl for an answer and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I get that you’re still a werewolf, but you’re not a _scary_ werewolf.” Stiles turns onto his stomach and ends up wedged against Derek’s side. “You didn’t put on a shirt,” he accuses.

“I only promised pants. Now go to sleep.”

Derek doesn’t make Stiles move from where he’s crammed into his ribs, and it’s really warm there, compared to every other spot in this goddamn city. Stiles will let himself stay there until his muscles get restless again, and then he will totally move. Just as soon as he needs to rearrange himself, which is absolutely not the same thing as fidgeting.

“You’re comfy,” he mumbles, voice half muffled by the mattress. Not that it matters when Derek has werewolf ears.

“Shut up.”

 

“No.”

“No, what?”

Stiles hears the words and his brain doesn’t… isn’t quite sure… what’s going on. They were just talking about… something. And it’s warm and Stiles is tired enough that he might fall asleep soon, and something solid is pressing into his cheek but… not uncomfortably.

_Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum._

The sound is strong and incredibly soothing, and Stiles just lets his tired brain float for a little while to the sound of… of…

Stiles groans. He’s going to have to figure out what the sound is now.

He opens his eyes and immediately squints them closed again at the assault of raw daylight filtering in through the curtains. He makes a series of unhappy noises and the hard edge under his cheek jumps slightly… just as Derek snorts.

Oh no.

Stiles forces his eyes open and confirms that yes, that hard, yet pliable, surface under his face is, indeed, Derek’s ribs. Of course it is. Stiles is fairly sure that he’s gone and wrapped himself around Derek entirely.

“Am I drooling on you?” he asks, words reasonably clear even with his cheek mashed into Derek’s body.

“Yep.” For his part, Derek does seem pretty chill about that, reclining against the headboard of the bed, holding a newspaper that’s folded down to a manageable size for one hand. The other arm is around Stiles and possibly leaning a coffee cup against his head. There’s too much werewolf warmth to tell for sure.

“I smell coffee.”

“Yeah, you do. You’re gonna have to get up if you want some.”

“Am I gonna have to leave the room?”

Derek takes an annoyingly loud sip from his cup. “Well, there’s no coffee maker in here, so…”

Stiles considers if he actually wants coffee that badly, and in the meantime makes some headway on sitting up. This involves _peeling_ his face off Derek and dragging the back of a hand over his mouth. Well, that was about the most unflattering way he could have possible woken up.

“Sorry. I… did I do that all night? I don’t even remember falling asleep.”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh. Well how did you get coffee, then?” Stiles asks. That seems a better focal point than ‘sorry for using you as a body pillow.’

“I left a pillow by the radiator for a while and let you latch onto that before I left.” Derek raises an eyebrow at him. “Worked pretty well, you’re not picky about your heat source.”

“I think you’re calling me easy,” Stile grumbles.

“Would you rather I call you a tart?”

“Oh my god, again?” Stiles turns away and hunkers down under the covers. “We’re not having this discussion again. I’m going back to sleep.”

Derek snickers behind him, and the bed dips slightly. Then the warmth behind Stiles is gone. “I’ll go get you a cup of coffee. Get up, we have a lot to do.”

Stiles fumbles beside the bed for his bag, singes himself slightly on the radiator, and squints at the crumpled itinerary. “Vespa rental and the Temple of Love!” he calls after him, loudly enough that he hears several guests in the kitchen titter and make ‘aww’ sounds.

“Yes, darling,” Derek calls. Stiles hates him a little.

* * *

  
**_Tour pour Deux_**

_**Romance with a View** \- If there’s one thing you absolutely must do when you’re in Paris, it’s to visit the Eiffel Towel. The view from the top is worth the climb to get there. Don’t skip this one!_  
_~~~~~_

 

As they cross more places off the list, Stiles isn't sure how Paris got a reputation for being romantic. He can absolutely see how it might have sped Coach Finstock’s relationship into an early grave (along with, let's be honest, a myriad of problems with Coach himself). There just isn't… a lot to it.

 

They check out a place that the itinerary calls the ‘Garden of Hopeless Romantics’ and highly recommends staying for tea. The nicest thing Stiles can say about it is that at least somewhere on that damn list is still where it's supposed to be. It’s pretty enough. The garden is behind an old house, and most old houses in France are probably pretty. The tea is good. It tastes kind of like cranberries with honey and cinnamon. But it’s cold outside and the tea room is in a drafty old plant nursery, so they don’t stay long. No one knows Isaac, and they don’t have to-go cups.

 

The tour offered two suggestions for sexy oyster dining. No one remembers ever seeing Isaac and neither place has fried clam strips, so they end up actually eating lunch at a French McDonald’s. Even if Stiles was trying to get into Derek’s pants (and he absolutely isn’t), just looking at raw oysters makes him kind of queasy.

 

By the time the Vespa rental shops start showing up as closed for the season, the mood is decidedly low.

“Look, this one might be open,” Stiles snaps. “So just quit with the glaring.”

“How did you not research this? You’re the research person,” Derek growls, still glaring at him.

“Oh, I’m sorry. In my haste to learn how to fucking navigate a foreign country and hunt down a defunct romance tour in the archives of a dead website, I forgot to check if Vespa rentals were seasonal,” Stiles growls right back, which doesn’t sound as impressive. He’s certain now that he had been looking at a dead website and not simply a seasonal one. No way could this crappy tour still be going on with so many things gone.

“You forgot to check if any of these places are open. Or even still exist!”

“The garden with the tea room still exists!”

“Great, the most unlikely place where Isaac would have been working in this entire city! Well done!”

Stiles snatches Derek’s sunglasses off his head and shoves them onto his face when his eyes start turning blue around the edges. If he poked Derek in the eye, which he thinks he did, Derek doesn’t flinch. “Could you possibly calm down? Now.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Derek growls, reaching for the sunglasses. Stiles slaps his hand away.

“I mean it,” he says, raising his eyebrows. He doesn’t think his eyebrows do as good a job of talking as Derek’s do, though, because Derek still tries to take his sunglasses off. “You’re going _blue_ in the face.”

Stiles can see the instant that registers and Derek’s forces his shoulders into a more relaxed posture. “…Sorry about that.”

Realizing he’s still holding the sides of Derek’s face, Stiles releases him and his sunglasses, which Derek leaves on. “Sure.” A change of topic would be awesome right about now. “There was a third Vespa place, right? Any idea where it is?”

“There.” Derek nods over Stile’s shoulder. Stiles looks behind him where there’s a row of scooters in all different colors, parked outside a small building. The front wall is entirely made of glass. The guy behind the desk is leaning on one hand, not even trying to pretend he isn’t watching them. Great.

“Bonjour,” the man greets them, raising knowing eyebrows. He holds up his hands when Derek raises his sunglasses to glare at him. “It’s okay. All couples fight while they’re traveling.” He looks at Stiles, then back at Derek. “Get him on a scooter in this weather and he will hold onto you tightly.”

Stiles rubs his forehead when Derek only glares harder in response to the guy’s wink. He reaches into his pocket at pulls out Isaac’s photo. “We’re looking for our friend.”

The guy gives the photo an appraising look. “Haven’t seen him. I would remember if I had. He’s cute, isn’t he?”

Stiles quickly pushes Derek’s sunglasses back down over his eyes and turns him back towards the door as the growling begins. “Thanks, we have to go now. Let’s go, honey,” he says, and pushes Derek out of the shop.

 

The Eiffel Tower is closed due to wind. 

* * *

  
**_Tour pour Deux_**

_**Dance the Night Away** \- Put on your dancing shoes, ladies! If you want to practice your salsa skills, look no further than the Seine River. Only in the City of Romance will you find couples spurred to take a turn on the dance floor right along the scenic river walk. Tempted to try a tango? Keep walking and you’ll find it along the Seine._  
_~~~~~_

 

Stiles continues pulling leaves out of his hair and ignores the looks they get as they follow the street along the Seine.

“I hate France. Officially.”

“You hate an entire country based on two days in one city?” Derek pulls a stick from the back of Stiles’ collar. “You're soaked. We should get you back to the B&B.”

“It's like no one in this city has ever seen someone who fell down a fucking ravine before.” Stiles scrubs at a streak of dirt on his sleeve and only succeeds in smearing it into the fabric even worse. Which is fine, he didn't like this shirt anyway.

“Pretty sure there’s a limited number of people who wander around looking quite as beat to hell as you are,” Derek points out. “Blood makes people uneasy.”

“It’s a few scrapes. I didn’t lose an arm,” Stiles says darkly, glaring at a pair of tourists (the obvious kind, with big hats and small cameras) who have the misfortune to be caught staring a little too openly. “I _fell_ , okay? Take a picture, why don’t you? And in case you were wondering, our friend Isaac isn’t living in the forest on that stupid island with the stupid Temple of Love, which isn’t even a temple! It’s a gazebo!”

The couple gapes at them a second longer before Derek growls at them. “Move it, he’s having a bad day.” He puts an arm around Stiles as the pair scurries off. “Come on. Just take some deep breaths.”

Stiles pats at his damp jeans belatedly and pulls out the photo. His fall into the lake has made the colors run together into each other to the point that Isaac is washed out and ugly blobs of muddy, congealed blue obscure half his face. “My picture is ruined,” he says. Just… stating a fact. Maybe a little dismayed because it’s the only photo he had where he could see Isaac’s face. But it’s not like the photo has been useful at all. Not even a little bit.

“I’ll get you another copy,” Derek says quietly. He doesn’t try to say Stiles will need the photo to show people when he tells them ‘Je cherche mon ami.’”

“Thanks,” Stiles says after a second. Derek nods, and they walk in silence. Derek keeps his arm around Stiles, and Stiles doesn’t try to pull away. He soaks the overabundance of werewolf heat into his frozen skin and tries not to think too hard about… any of this. About how they’ve stopped talking about Isaac like they expect to find him.

There are people dancing beside the river, bundled up in sweaters and skirts with warm leggings under them. Scarves. Stiles can just barely hear the music from the small speaker over the click of heels and the scuffle of shoes on concrete, but it’s there. He pulls a wad of damp paper from his other pocket and looks at it. The itinerary is ruined, and the well-creased paper has fallen apart and settled into a sodden block in his pocket, mottled with the red ink from the type.

“This was on the list,” he says, tipping his chin towards the dancers. “It said to go dance by the Seine. That there’s dancing all along the river. Tango, salsa, whatever… go far enough along the river and you’ll find whatever kind of dancing you like.”

“This must be the spot for tango. Looks romantic, I guess,” Derek says, taking the soggy paper from Stiles’ hand.

“I guess.” Stiles shrugs. “It looks… clumsier than I expected.” Most of the couples shuffled together like they weren’t sure who was leading. There was a lot of dramatic hip-swinging, but Stiles sees more than one couple knock their shins together where the trickier foot work goes. “Everyone’s doing the same dance but they’re all at different parts.”

Derek looks at him for a few seconds and chuckles. “You watch too many musicals. Haven’t you ever seen people dancing in real life?”

“Sure,” Stiles says, miffed at the implication that he’s culturally lacking.

“’Jungle’ and Danny’s Halloween rave don’t count.”

“School dance?”

“Real dancing. Something you learn, like a tango.”

“Oh. Then no.”

“That’s what it looks like,” Derek says, nodding to the dancers beside the river. “It’s not usually something polished. And none of them care what the other dancers are doing.”

Stiles watches them until one tinny song dies out, and many of the dancers just keep shuffling around in the few seconds of silence before another one starts up. “It still just looks awkward to me.”

“Maybe it’s different if you’re the one in love. From the outside, romance is pretty awkward,” Derek says, shrugging. “Hard truth. Come on, you need to get changed before you catch hypothermia and die.”

* * *

 

**_Tour pour Deux_ **

_**Canal-side Lunch Service** \- How about a scenic lunch where the pizza comes to you? Order up a pie at Pink Flamingo and you’ll be handed a pink balloon. Then you and your sweetie can pick your lunch spot anywhere along the Canal Saint Martin and await your pizza, delivered hot and fresh by bicycle!_  
_~~~~~_

 

Derek lets Stiles pick what he wants for dinner and Stiles knows why. He still picks, says he wants pizza and he doesn’t want to eat on the Seine. He doesn’t want to keep trying to wrap his head around this notion that proper romance could still fall completely off beat from the rest of the world. That this shitty place might actually be the most romantic city on earth and Stiles just doesn’t… get it.

“It better be some damn good pizza to come all the way out here,” Derek says as their cab drives away, stretching out the kinks from a cramped half hour.

“Pizza with a view.” Stiles stretches his arms out to indicate the canal that stretches out on either side of them. In the dusky evening, the rows of little boutique shops have turned on strings of fairy lights that run along awnings and around doorways.

“Where’d you hear about this place?”

“Yelp, when I was leaving that review,” Stiles lies, looking away and down the street. If Derek smells it, he doesn’t say so. “It’s cool, they give you a balloon when you order so the delivery guys can find you. You eat it along the canal.”

“It’s going to get cold almost right aw-”

“Don’t be a spoilsport,” Stiles calls, and makes a beeline for a sign that says ‘Pizzas’ and hangs below a pink, plastic flamingo. Call him a masochist, but… he needs to finish that shitty list. He remembers this place. It was the last one he had marked as somewhere Isaac might be working.

The Pink Flamingo pizzeria is gaudy and doesn’t seem ashamed of it, unless pink lighting from the plastic flamingos being used as lamp shades is chic here. Otherwise, it reminds him of a lot of pizza places back home. Black and white tiles on the walls, and a cramped space inside, just big enough to make an order and promptly get back out. Niceties like tables and chairs are for outside.

Stiles looks around just in case. Just to say he did. Just to say they checked every single box on that stupid list.

The guy he can see working in the kitchen behind those pizza boxes has to be in his 40s and going bald. The one at the register is 5’4”. No blond curls. No bored eyes. No one is even wearing a scarf.

Stiles carries his pink balloon out of the shop and looks around until he sees Derek’s red sweater further down along the canal. It’s not terribly crowded, given the weather, and certainly not with people looking to eat outside.

“List all finished?” Derek asks as Stiles sits down beside him on the edge of the canal, feet dangling over the water. Stiles isn’t surprised that he knew, somehow.

“All finished. No Isaac.” Stiles looks up at the balloon as it twirls in the gusty breeze above them. “We’re going home tomorrow, aren’t we?”

Derek doesn’t look surprised either. “You knew.”

Stiles laughs a little and wishes he didn’t. It doesn’t sound happy. “You let me pick whatever I wanted to eat right before you told me we had to go back to Beacon Hills at the end of that summer. When we didn’t find Erica and Boyd.”

“You wanted hot dogs from a gas station. I remember.”

“I wanted to eat gas station hot dogs while sitting on the hood of your Camaro,” Stiles corrects him. “I knew you were gonna give me bad news when you said yes.”

Derek snorts and shakes his head. “So my level of tolerance is your yardstick for bad news.”

“Pretty much.”

They both look out at the water again. Derek speaks first.

“It was always a long shot. We could stay and search this entire city, but… we don’t have a single thing left to go on,” he says, and Stiles appreciates that there’s no blame in his tone.

“A year is a long time. He might not even be in France anymore.” Stiles forces himself to be sensible. It’s only fair. Derek has gone off on more than a few wild hares these past two days. This whole goddamn trip was a wild hare.

“You’re taking the news better this time than you did over hot dogs.”

Stiles sighs. “Yeah. I told myself I’d be more graceful about it time time. It’s not something I want to get used to, though.”

It’s Derek’s turn to laugh. His also doesn’t sound happy. “At this point we’re pretty much safe from doing this a-” Derek cuts himself off abruptly and gets to his feet at the same time bicycle tires skid to a sharp stop behind them. Stiles turns and sees the pink pizza box on its side, gooey cheese and tomato sauce oozing onto the pavement with steam rising off it.

Whatever he was about to say dies abruptly in his throat when he looks up at the delivery guy. Maybe it was the change in Derek’s demeanor, but Stiles will always swear that he knew as soon as he saw the goddamn pink scarf, even before he got a look at Isaac’s face. He looks frantically between Derek and Isaac. Both of them just stare at each other, poised like they’re about to run. Or expecting the other to run.

Stiles has no patience for a Mexican werewolf standoff. It seems that he and Derek both forgot to plan what they would do if they actually found Isaac, but Stiles is willing to improvise. He scrambles to his feet and lunges for Isaac, grabbing onto his scarf and hanging on for dear life.

“Isaac! You… we… this entire shitty romance trip sucks and we’re going home tomorrow and you’re here but tomorrow you’re fucking coming back home!”

Isaac, happily, doesn’t seem inclined to shake Stiles off. Which is good because Stiles doesn’t think he would win against a werewolf trying to make an escape. He just looks between Stiles and Derek.

“Wait so… did you guys finally get together?”

* * *

 

**Google Translate**  
**English** : Epilogue  
**French** : Épilogue

 

Stiles is lounging on Derek’s couch, one leg thrown over the arm, and just generally enjoying being able to wear a light sweatshirt and still feel all of his body parts. He’s never leaving California again. Derek is sipping a cup of coffee and reading a book on the other end of the couch, probably enjoying the rare moment of Stiles not talking. Not that it’ll last, because Stiles is already gearing up for a rousing discussion on the history and nature of pickles at Christmas in Germany. Then he’ll probably have to go because his dad will expect him home at a reasonable hour on Christmas Eve so that Stiles won’t be too tired when he pulls his dad out of bed at 5 am.

A package hits the couch between them as Isaac walks pack and into the kitchen. Derek doesn’t look over because he’s immune to the lure of presents. Stiles does because he’s not.

_To: d & s_  
_From: i_

“You know your name starts with a capital letter, right? And has…” Stiles pauses and counts. “Five letters.”

“Do I tell you how to fill out gift tags?” Isaac pulls the milk out of the fridge and pulls off the cap.

“Use a glass,” Derek says, still not looking up from his book. Isaac pauses with the jug half lifted to his mouth. He sighs, a long-suffering sigh, and opens the glasses cabinet.

“So… what is it?” Stiles asks, picking it up and testing the weight. It’s light, and Stiles figures most of the weight is the slightly crumpled white bow on top.

“Traditionally you find that out by opening the paper,” Isaac says over the lip of his glass.

“Smartass.” Stiles offers it to Derek, who finally glances to the side, but shakes his head. Probably because he can see Stiles’ fingers already twitching at the corner of the paper. Stiles immediately tears open the paper and lets it drop onto the couch, sliding over the edge and onto the floor. The naked present is a folded piece of computer paper, which, when unfolded says… “Tango lessons?”

Even Derek raises an eyebrow and looks over his shoulder at Isaac for that. “Why did you get us tango lessons?”

“It’s a romantic dance.”

“Yeah, we know. They did it spontaneously in Paris.” Stiles still feels kind of let down by that whole debacle.

Isaac shrugs. “So, if you have to use some other romantic tour to go find Jackson, maybe you can find a nice London dance spot to make good use of it.”

“That’s… weirdly nice,” Stiles says. “I think you were trying to be snarky about it, but it didn’t work.”

“Yeah, well… maybe I just want you guys out of the loft for a while,” Isaac snaps, setting his glass in the sink, miffed at the accusation of genuine niceness.

“Thank you,” Derek says, looking back at Isaac again.

“I’m going to hang out at Scott’s.” Isaac is apparently done with whatever bonding they were all trying to do (Stiles thinks they were trying, anyway).

He watches Isaac practically get his scarf caught in the door in his haste to get out, then looks back at the paper as the door slams shut. “I think he gets his emotional candor from you.”

“Probably.”

Stiles hauls himself off the couch and stretches. “I gotta run. Remind me tomorrow and I’ll tell you about German Christmas pickles.”

Derek’s brow furrows like he wants to ask but then just… smooths into acceptance. “Of course you will.”

“Great!” Stiles pulls on his coat, glancing at the scrawny tree, limbs drooping a little under the weight of the strand of lights running around it. The good trees were gone by the time they got back from France. His eyes go right to the square, flat package sits under it, wrapped in green paper (the good paper was gone too). Stiles still isn’t sure he likes the idea but… he can’t very well take it back now.

“So… if Isaac isn’t home at midnight, you can go ahead and open the present from me,” he says, trying to keep his heart rate calm. It doesn’t work because Derek is immediately looking at him and doing that frowning thing that says he doesn’t like a chemo-signal he’s picking up.

“Can I just open it now?” he asks, setting his book down.

Fuck. “Obviously you have to wait until Christmas. It’s a Christmas present. So you have to wait another two h-”

“Stiles. Give it to me.”

Stiles gives half a second’s consideration to just bolting for the door, but again with the part about not being able to best werewolves in any athletic way. He sighs and grabs the package, pushing it into Derek’s hands. Derek sits up and neatly tears through the top of the paper, not, Stiles notices, using his claws. Which is weirdly considerate of all possible contents.

He slides the frame out of the gaping paper and looks at it. And doesn’t say anything. He just… looks at it, face completely impassive. Stiles would give anything for his own wolf nose to catch chemo-signals right now, because Derek’s reaction makes him wonder for a second if he left the stock photo in the frame.

“I… should have gotten you something better. We just got back so late in the month and…” Stiles had kind of hoped Derek would cut him off with yelling or something, so he didn’t have to try and finish that sentence. Derek doesn’t, so Stiles just lets it trail off. He can’t really justify why he didn’t just go with that meat log idea.

“Thank you,” Derek says after way, way too long. His voice is quiet, though, and Stiles can tell that he means it.

Stiles lets out a painfully relieved breath and sags a little from the effort of holding his spine rigid. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it. I was worr-”

“I mean for everything.” Derek looks at him and Stiles is so glad the fairy lights throw strange shadows around because it means he can’t see what’s on Derek’s face. He thinks there’s probably more on there than Derek would want to show.

Stiles thinks about the first ‘everything’ that had them crawling into all the guts of Beacon Hills, looking for two people they never found. The second ‘everything’ that had them chasing defunct romantic haunts to find a person they tripped over in the end. “We did it this time.”

“We did.” Derek sets the picture in his lap carefully and picks up their gift from Isaac. “…Tango lessons can’t have been cheap.”

“No,” Stiles agrees, feeling a warmth settle into his chest. “Probably rude to just waste them, right?”

“Really rude. If we practice hard, we could show up everyone else on the Seine.” Derek gets up, setting the frame and the paper on the couch as he does. “Merry Christmas, Stiles.”

“It’s technically still Christmas Eve,” Stiles says, mouth on the same smartass autopilot as ever, even as he steps closer and lets Derek get an arm around him. “You have to wait until tomorrow to-”

“Stiles.”

Stiles laughs and turns into Derek, getting an arm around him to turn the embrace from a side-hug into a full-on, absolutely official hug. “Merry Christmas, Derek.”

**Author's Note:**

> “La vie est une fleur dont l’amour est le miel.” -Victor Hugo  
> Translation: "Life is a flower of which love is the honey." -Victor Hugo


End file.
